TREE DISPUTE MAY BE BEHIND FATAL SHOOTING

Neighbor arrested in slaying says ‘it was self-defense’

For those mourning the slaying of Encinitas filmmaker John Upton, it’s the question with no clear answer: How can a dispute over trees with a neighboring property owner end in deadly gunfire?

On Friday, the only signs left of the violent encounter a day earlier were yard tools, work gloves, freshly cut tree branches and remnants of yellow police tape along the rural Olivenhain road where Upton, 56, was fatally shot.

Sheriff’s investigators arrested Michael Vilkin, 61, who owns the neighboring vacant lot off Lone Jack Road, next to the large home Upton rented.

A gardener who works on Lone Jack said he often spotted Vilkin cutting down trees lining a thin path that was to serve someday as the access driveway to the home Vilkin planned to build.

Vilkin told 10News in a jailhouse interview Friday that he fired in self-defense. Upton valued his privacy, Vilkin said, and the dispute over the tree-trimming was an ongoing issue between the men.

“It was self-defense. I did not go to him. He came to me, threatening, and pulled a gun on me,” Vilkin told the television station.

Lt. Jim Bolwerk said Friday that he could not comment on Vilkin’s claim of self-defense, citing the ongoing investigation.

“We are still trying to determine exactly what happened,” Bolwerk said.

Investigators are still talking to neighbors and others to find out more about the history between Vilkin, a former economist, and Upton, who gained international attention in the 1990s for his work rescuing Romanian orphans.

A woman at Vilkin’s Encinitas apartment waved off a reporter at the door Friday morning.

A woman who visited the Upton home Friday morning said the family often had problems with Vilkin.

According to a 1992 story in Pensions & Investments, Vilkin grew up in the Soviet Union and was an economist for a state-owned chain of food stores. He immigrated to the U.S. from Georgia in the late 1980s.

Once in the U.S., Vilkin worked as a security guard but developed an investing model based on the value of a company. He told the publication, which was writing about Vilkin’s model, that investing was part art, part science.

Records indicate that Vilkin had lived in a few different coastal apartments after moving to San Diego County from New York in the early 2000s.

He and his wife purchased the vacant 2.6-acre Olivenhain lot in 2008 for $170,000.

Vilkin’s arraignment is set for Tuesday in Vista Superior Court. He remains jailed without bail.

News of the slaying continued to spread Friday, with many of Upton’s friends and family asking the same question: What happened?

Michael Upton still can’t reconcile Vilkin’s version of events with what he knows about his brother, and what Upton’s girlfriend said she witnessed.

“It’s totally inconsistent,” the brother said.

Early Thursday morning also came with news that Upton’s mother had died from cancer.

Izidor Ruckel, 32, said he owes his life to Upton. He was one of the Romanian children brought to the United States.